


creature of the forest

by rosielibrary



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fluff, POV Nonhuman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 19:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16838953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosielibrary/pseuds/rosielibrary
Summary: a request for a nonhuman reader and ford and shenanigans.also involves some ddamdbecausewe love the centaur-taur.(word of warning: this fic is from 2015 and unedited!)





	creature of the forest

The woods are your home. Trees shield you from both sun and sleet, and the mountain’s dark caves keep you warm against the snow. Humans come and go, but you remain; you watch the citizens of Gravity Falls from tall redwoods, and years go by before anything interesting happens.

There is one human, however, that interests you.

He comes to the forest often, with a large red book in his hand. Always writing, drawing, studying. An odd human, not like the others, you decide.

A Scientist.

So you reveal yourself to him. He almost falls off the fell log in shock, babbling about the wizard that watches over the forests. You correct him about his choice of the word “wizard” and say “guardian”, since you certainly are not a wizard. The nerve. Since when do “wizards” look after animals and plants and trees? Never, that’s when.

The Scientist asks you hundreds of questions, most of which you skirt around with clever answers, but you do quench some of his curiosity with honesty. He inquires how your powers work, if you can communicate with the mythical creatures and not just the animals, and even how old you are, which he wasn’t quite prepared for. His little eye guards fall down his nose at your age, and you steal them from him, letting them balance on your face atop what you figure is your equivalent of a nose.

“Like a tree, I have been here for many generations, growing as the town does,” you continue, squinting through his eye guards, you find, as your vision blurs. “What are these? I cannot see anymore.”

“They’re— They’re my glasses,” he laugh, taking them back from you. “They help me see.”

“Glasses.” You repeat the word and watch him as he put them on. “Humans need help to see? Don’t they all have normal vision?”

“Not all humans are the same, I guess,” he mutters, staring at his hands. You don't see any problem, but apparently, he does.

Taking his hand in yours, you press your palms together. Your hands are a lot longer than his, your fingers thin, slightly green-tinted.

“Everyone is different, Scientist.” He looks up into your eyes, dark brown meeting emerald, the color of the summer’s tree leaves. “You must learn to look past your differences if you are to become as strong as the forest.”

Going quiet for a moment, his wide eyes trace over your fingers against his. You have the same number of digits on each hand as him, despite the small leaves that grew at the tips, not unlike nails.

“Stanford,” he stammers, and you tilt your head, confused. “My name. Stanford.”

You don’t have a real name, so you don’t tell him anything.

“It is my pleasure to meet you, Stanford.”

He became a close friend during his exploration of the woods, and you helped him where you could, but after a while, he disappeared into the shadows of his house. You waited for him, but he didn’t return.

It feels like a blink of an eye to you, of course. Thirty years, fleeting in the eyes of an immortal forest guardian, an eternity for a mortal. but you hear a pair of voices in the trees, too young to be your old friend. Two children, one in a large hat, the other in a sweater of warm colors, explore your lands-- and the former holds the same red book that Stanford always cradled protectively in his arms.

You could trust them, in theory, but you don't want to hurt like you still do for Stanford. You miss him, and these children won't replace him by any means. But you aid in their adventures like you did for him, in secret, fading into the bushes if the little boy looks around too quickly. Dipper, his name. The girl, Mabel, tells him not to be so nervous, grinning widely with train-tracks stuck to her teeth.

You see the children many times over the course of that summer, running from monsters and to monsters, from the gnomes in the groves to the Multi-Bear in the mountains (Dipper, apparently kin to him now, tells you later that they bonded over human music). You move branches when needed and turn the tide of the rivers and lakes, but Mabel's grappling hook leaves punctures in your trees that you’ll never forget.

Sweet children. You wonder why they remind you so much of him.

It’s not until a little later into the summer that you realize why. 

A large monster that doesn’t belong to your forests marches through the trodden path, holding Dipper and a much older man in his claws, and you follow them, curious, to a clearing, where they’re tied to a tree. A withered man with a long staff is bleating at them for a long while, and it’s only when he scuttles away from them that you see their faces.

You could recognize those glasses anywhere, even with the new lightning-shatter in them.

He looks much older than when you last saw him, the brown in his hair faded to grey. Tempted to try and help them, you raise a hand to turn the tree's roots and snap the ropes, but the field of magic around the clearing is too powerful for you, so you watch from the top of the tree instead. The old man and Stanford talk animatedly (and angrily) for a moment; you have no idea what the stakes are, but by the Dipper’s wide eyes and shaking hands, they're pretty high. Mabel and one of her friends come barging in, followed by another old man with a little red hat in the shape of a bucket (who looks a lot like Stanford, oddly), and after a loud conversation between each person in the clearing, an agreement appears. Or, well, a bet.

Stanford and Dipper shrink down onto a wide board’s surface, adorning new costumes, apparently to fit the theme of the game they're about to engage in. You laugh at Stanford’s pointed ears, much like your own, and the wind picks up around the clearing. He looks up, around the tops of the trees, but you hide behind a branch before he sees. Best not to bring more madness into this... game.

They become pawns of the game that the bucket-hatted man and Mabel play against the old man, and you watch, squinting at the circular numbered objects that they roll onto the floor. But it’s the “Ogrenado”, a term so ridiculous it’s too weird to be true, that you can’t honestly believe when the tornado of monster heads erupts onto the board, chasing the double-bodied horse around until it explodes into nothingness.

After a battle involving an “Impossibeast” and some more explosions (coming from small food objects, which you don’t understand at all), the side Stanford plays for wins, and he grows back to his regular size, along with the boy. The old man with the pointy hat disappears into a box titled “Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons”; Dipper picks it up, talking to Mabel and her friend, but Stanford remains silent. Brooding, as he did so long ago.

You take the opportunity to make the wind around his shoulders whirl, and with a slightly more powerful puff, his glasses fall down his nose.

The little girl’s friend shouts something about a “Duck-tective” and the family dash back to where they came, but Stanford says he’ll catch up in a few minutes. As soon as they’re out of sight, he glances around the clearing, six-fingered hands on his hips.

“I know you’re there.”

It’s said with a stern air, but you know better from him by now. You jump down from the tree and land lightly on the ground, brushing the leaves from your hair.

“It has been a long time, Stanford.”

He turns around to see you, and his eyes soften. You smile at him, shaking your head.

“Why have your glasses broken?”

The scientist doesn’t answer, but instead strides toward you and gathers you up in his arms, his forehead on your shoulder. Still a head taller than him, after all these years.

“I missed you,” he murmurs into your hair, pulling back and giving you a once over. “You’ve not changed at all.”

“I do not age– unlike you humans,” you laugh, gently ruffling his salt and pepper hair with your long fingers.

“Ah, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Stanford’s dirt-encrusted boot scuffs at the ground, his gaze cast down, and he looks just like the young, inquisitive scientist that you talked to all those years ago in the clearing in the woods.

This clearing in the woods, now that you think about it. Maybe you were older than you thought.

But you have all the time in the world now your friend is back by your side.


End file.
